While health and safety concerns should always be a business’ top priority, the COVID-19 pandemic has only reinforced the importance of these matters. And as parts of the nation prepare to re-open, now is the right time to analyze the health risks and protocols of your facility. Having an overview of the level of risk your business has to its peoples’ health is the first step to ensuring a safe, hygienic work environment. Every industry and company will take a slightly different approach to their facility health risk analysis, but if you’re not sure where to begin, you might follow a basic blueprint for evaluating your business’ health and safety status. Let’s go over some key considerations to make in order to keep your employees, partners, and customers safe during and after COVID-19.
How Secure Is Your Facility?
When we discuss workplace security, we’re usually thinking about guarding against break-ins, protecting company information, etc. But bad actors aren’t the only agents you want to keep out — microorganisms like bacteria and viruses (especially COVID-19) also pose a threat to your people and operations. And because these pathogens are invisible to the naked eye, it can be especially difficult to keep them out. If your security measures are lacking, employees, customers, and other entrants may unknowingly bring COVID-19 and other infectious diseases into your facility. To mitigate this risk, update your security protocols. Some actions you might take include providing tests for employees when available, temporarily limiting entry of customers and visitors, reconfiguring entryways and exits to streamline foot traffic flow, and more.
What Is Your Disinfection and Cleaning Strategy?
If you don’t have a competent, thorough cleaning and disinfection strategy in place, now is the time to ramp up these measures. Simply put, unclean, unsanitized surfaces are more likely to facilitate the spread of infection inside your workplace. While no amount of disinfection can guarantee the total elimination of all harmful contagions, hiring professional disinfecting services to regularly and properly sanitize your facility greatly reduces these risks.
Take Travel into Account
If your business involves even a fair amount of travel (including lengthy commutes), your facility will be at greater risk of a COVID-19 outbreak and other health concerns. This is because infections like COVID-19 spread very quickly and easily from one individual to the next. More travel equals more exposure and therefore leads to an increased chance of someone in your workplace becoming infected and putting others at risk. So, you might want to restrict or at least heavily limit travel within your organization, taking both duration, location, and distance into account. Also, if some of your people can work remotely, encourage this option until further notice.
Consider Production Concerns
The nature of your business may also put your employees and customers at risk of health and safety concerns. For instance, food and beverage manufacturers must deal with tons of chemicals, raw materials, and food products that have been previously handled by others; Pharmaceutical and biological labs must ensure sterile environments to keep consumers and technicians safe; Restaurants have to make and deliver food to their customers without extensive contact; the list goes on. See if you can make any temporary adjustments to your operations that might reduce the risk of contamination and the spread of infection.
Adjust Your Work Culture if Necessary
Lastly, evaluate your work culture. Offices that contain several employees in close proximity present significant health risks. The same goes for workplaces that require regular teamwork, conduct routine meetings, feature plenty of high-touch surfaces, etc. As previously mentioned, switching to some degree of remote work (if possible) is a great way to keep your business moving without forcing individuals to remain in the same physical space for extended periods. If your people must physically gather to get the job done, though, try to find ways to keep them at least six feet apart at all times, and provide them with face masks and gloves to reduce the possible spread of infectious particles. Additionally, hiring dedicatedcleaning services for offices is an important step in disinfecting surfaces and maintaining an overall clean environment.
How At-Risk Is Your Facility?
Defending your people against something as small, spreadable, and sinister as COVID-19 is no simple task, but it is necessary, especially as society slowly returns to normal (a new normal, anyway). The best way to do so is by assessing the risk level of your facility and taking firm, informed steps to mitigate these risks. If you need help developing a health and safety strategy, The Budd Group can help. We offer thorough cleaning and disinfection services tailor-made for each client’s needs, concerns, and risk levels. Not only will we keep your facility clean and sanitary — we’ll also help you come up with ways to ensure the health and safety of your employees and customers during this uncertain time and afterward.